ictor Hugo is a French poet, playwright, writer, novelist and romantic designer, born February 26, 1802 (7 Ventôse Year X) in Besançon and died May 22, 1885 in Paris. He is considered one of the most important writers in the French language. He is also a political figure and a committed intellectual who had a major ideological role and occupies a significant place in the history of French letters in the 19th century.

In the theater, Victor Hugo established himself as one of the leaders of French romanticism by presenting his conception of romantic drama in the prefaces which introduced Cromwell in 1827, then Hernani in 1830, which are true manifestos, then through his other works dramas, in particular Lucrezia Borgia in 1833 and Ruy Blas in 1838.

His poetic work includes several collections of lyric poems, the most famous of which are Odes and Ballades published in 1826, Les Feuilles d'Automne in 1831 and Les Contemplations in 1856. Victor Hugo is also a poet engaged against Napoleon III in Les Châtiments, published in 1853, and an epic poet in La Légende des siècle, published from 1859 to 1883.

As a novelist, he met with great popular success, first with Notre-Dame de Paris in 1831, and even more with Les Misérables in 1862.

His varied work also includes political writings and speeches, travel accounts, collections of notes and memoirs, literary commentaries, abundant correspondence, nearly four thousand drawings, most of which were done in ink, as well as the design interior decorations and a contribution to photography.

Very involved in public debate, Victor Hugo was a parliamentarian under the July Monarchy and under the Second and Third Republic. He was exiled for nearly twenty years in Jersey and Guernsey during the Second Empire, of which he was one of the great opponents. Attached to peace and freedom and sensitive to human misery, he spoke in favor of numerous social advances, opposed the death penalty and supported the idea of ​​a unified Europe.

His resolutely republican commitment in the second part of his life and his immense literary work made him an emblematic character, whom the Third Republic honored with a national funeral and the transfer of his remains to the Panthéon in Paris on June 1, 1885, ten days after his death.

Having strongly contributed to the renewal of poetry and theater and having marked his era by his political and social positions, Victor Hugo is still celebrated today, in France and abroad, as an illustrious character, whose life and the work have been the subject of multiple comments and tributes.
Biography
Childhood and youth
The parents of Victor Hugo, Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Trébuchet.

Victor-Marie Hugo1 is the son of the general of the Empire Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773-1828), created count, according to family tradition, by Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain, captain in garrison in Doubs at the time of birth of his son, and of Sophie Trébuchet (1772-1821), from the Nantes bourgeoisie.
Birthplace of Victor Hugo in Besançon.

He was born on February 26, 18022 ("7 ventôse year X" according to the Republican calendar then in force), in Besançon, on the 1st floor of 140 Grande Rue, since renamed Place Victor-Hugo). Barely born, he is already the center of attention. A fragile child, his mother took great care of him3, as he would later recount in his autobiographical poem This century was two years old.

The last of a family of three boys after Abel Joseph Hugo (1798-1855) and Eugène Hugo (1800-1837), he spent his childhood in Paris, at 8 rue des Feuillantines, in rented accommodation in the former Feuillantines convent , sold as national property during the Revolution. This stay in a wild garden, a vestige of the park of the old monastery, will leave him with happy memories.

Frequent stays in Naples and Spain, following his father's military assignments, marked his early years. Thus, in 1811, when Madame Hugo joined her husband, the family stopped in Hernani, a town in the Spanish Basque Country. The same year, he, with his brothers Abel and Eugène, boarded in a religious institution in Madrid, the Real Colegio de San Antonio Abad4. In 1812, he moved to Paris with his mother who had separated from her husband, because she was having an affair with the General of the Empire Victor Fanneau de la Horie, godfather and tutor of Victor Hugo, from whom he took his first name5 .

In September 1815, he entered the Cordier pension with his brother. According to Adèle Foucher, his childhood friend who later became his wife, it was around this age that he began to write verses. Self-taught, it was through trial and error that he learned rhyme and measure6. He is encouraged by his mother to whom he reads his works, as well as his brother Eugène. His writings were reread and corrected by a young study master from the Cordier pension who took a liking to the two brothers7. His vocation is precocious and his ambitions are immense. Barely fourteen years old, Victor noted in a diary: “I want to be Chateaubriand or nothing”8.
Victor Hugo portrayed by Adèle Foucher in 1820.
Self-portrait of Adèle Foucher in 1825.

In 1817, Victor Hugo was fifteen years old when he participated in a poetry competition organized by the French Academy, on the theme Happiness that study provides in all situations of life. According to Adèle Foucher's account, the jury is on the verge of awarding him the prize, but the title of his poem (Three chandeliers barely) suggests too much his young age and the Academy believes it to be a hoax: he receives only one mention9. He competed without success in the following years but won, in competitions organized by the Academy of Floral Games of Toulouse, in 1819, a Golden Lily for The Statue of Henri IVA 1 and a Golden Amaranthe for The Virgins of VerdunA 2,10, and a golden Amaranth in 1820 for Moses on the Nile11,12. Having won three prizes, he became Master of Floral Games in 182013, followed by Chateaubriand the following year14.

Encouraged by his success, Victor Hugo abandoned mathematics, for which he had an aptitude (he took preparatory classes at the Louis-le-Grand high school15), and embraced a literary career. With his brothers Abel and Eugène, in 1819 he founded an ultra-royalist magazine, Le Conservateur littéraire, which already drew attention to his talent. His first collection of poems, Odes, appeared in 1821: he was then nineteen years old. The thousand and five hundred copies sold out in four months. King Louis XVIII, who owned a copy, granted him an annual pension of a thousand francs16, which allowed him to live from his passion and to consider marrying his childhood friend Adèle Foucher5.
Young writer
Portrait of Victor Hugo against a background of Notre-Dame de Reims.
Canvas by Jean Alaux, house of Victor Hugo, 1822.

The death of his mother on June 27, 1821 affected him deeply17. Indeed, the years of separation from his father had brought him closer to her. On October 12, 1822, he married Adèle Foucher, his childhood friend, in the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris. From their marriage five children were born. The first, Léopold, in 1823, only lived a few months. Léopoldine followed in 1824, Charles in 1826, François-Victor in 1828 and Adèle in 1830.

Hugo began writing Han d'Islande, published in 1823, which received a mixed reception, but earned its author a new pension of two thousand francs. A well-argued criticism of Charles Nodier is the occasion for a meeting between the two men and the birth of a friendship18. At the Arsenal library, the cradle of romanticism, he participated in the meetings of the Cenacle, which would have a great influence on its development19. His friendship with Nodier lasted until 1827-1830, a time when the latter began to be very critical of the works of Victor Hugo. During this period, Victor Hugo reconnected with his father20, who inspired the poems Odes à mon pèrea and After the battle21. He died in 1828.

During this period, he became interested in painting and discovered Paul Huet's studio with enthusiasm: “He is a young man of the greatest talent. You will share Delacroix’s satisfaction and mine,” he wrote22.

Until Mars 1824, the couple lived with Adèle's parents. They moved to 90 rue de Vaugirardb, the apartment where their daughter Léopoldine was born in August 1824. The arrival of their son Charles in November 1826 caused the family to move the following year to a house at 11 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champsc.

His play Cromwell, published in 1827, was a hit. In the preface to this drama, Victor Hugo opposes classical conventions, in particular the unity of time and the unity of place, and lays the first foundations of his romantic drama23.

The couple received a lot and became friends with Sainte-Beuve, Lamartine, Mérimée, Musset, Delacroix24. François– Victor was born in October 1828. In May 1830, the family moved to Rue Jean-Goujon. Adèle, their last child, was born in July. They lived on rue Jean-Goujon until October 1832.

Adèle Foucher, neglected in the whirlwind that surrounded the writing, rehearsals, performances and Hernani's triumph, becomes closer to the couple's best friend and confidant, Sainte-Beuve, then maintains a romantic relationship with him, which develops during the year 183125. Between the two men, courteous relations are nevertheless maintained before their friendship turns into hatred (Hugo even thinks of provoking him to a duel) when Adèle confesses her infidelity to her husband. Their affair lasted until 1837, when Sainte-Beuve left Paris for Lausanne26.

From 1826 to 1837, the family frequently stayed at the Château des Roches in Bièvres, property of Bertin l'Aîné, director of the Journal des Débats. During these stays, Hugo met Berlioz, Chateaubriand, Liszt, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and wrote collections of poetry, including the Autumn Leaves. In 1829, he published the collection of poems Les Orientales. The same year, The Last Day of a Convict was published, a short novel in which Victor Hugo presented his disgust with the death penalty, a subject he would tackle again in Claude Gueux in 1834. The novel Notre Dame de Paris appeared in 1831.
“Theatre” years
Victor Hugo in 1829.
Lithograph by Achille Devéria, Paris, Carnavalet museum.
The battle of Hernani (caricature by Grandville, 1836).
Juliette Drouet around 1827.
Portrait painted by Charles-Émile Callande de Champmartin.

From 1830 to 1843, Victor Hugo devoted himself almost exclusively to the theater. However, he continued to write poems during this period and published several collections: The Autumn Leaves (1831), The Songs of Twilight (1835), The Inner Voices (1837), The Rays and the Shadows (1840).

Already in 1828, he had produced an early work by Amy Robsart. The year 1830 was that of the creation of Hernani, which was the occasion of a founding literary confrontation between ancients and moderns. The latter, first and foremost Théophile Gautier, were enthusiastic about this romantic work. On February 25, 1830, the play was performed at the Théâtre-Français. From the first verses, quarrels are heard in the audience. Quickly the romantics and the old ones fight and defend each other. This fight, which will go down in the history of literature under the name “battle of Hernani”, underlines the triumph of the play27.

Marion de Lorme, banned for the first time in 1829, was staged in 1831 at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, then, in 1832, Le roi s'amuse at the Théâtre-Français. The play will initially be banned, a fact about which Hugo will be outraged in the preface to the original edition of 183228.

In 1833, he met the actress Juliette Drouet, who became his mistress and remained so for fifty years, until her death. He wrote many poems for her. The two of them spend each anniversary of their first night of love together and, on this occasion, year after year, fill out a common notebook that they tenderly call the Anniversary Bookd,29,30. However, he had many other mistresses31, including Léonie d'Aunet with whom he had an affair from 1844 to 1851, and the actress Alice Ozy in 1847, even though her son Charles was her lover32.

Lucrèce Borgia and Marie Tudor appeared at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in 1833, Angelo, tyran de Padoue at the Théâtre Français in 1835. Unable to find a room to perform his new dramas, Victor Hugo decided, with Alexandre Dumas, to create a room dedicated to romantic drama. Anténor Joly, director of a theater and then a newspaper, received, by ministerial decree, the privilege authorizing the creation of the Renaissance theater in 183633, where Ruy Blas would be performed in 1838.

Victor Hugo entered the French Academy on January 7, 1841, after three unsuccessful attempts mainly due to certain academicians led among others by Étienne de Jouye, opposed to romanticism and fiercely fighting it34. He took the chair (no. 14) of Népomucène Lemercier, one of these opponents.

Then, in 1843, the play Les Burgraves was staged, which did not achieve the expected success. During the creation of all these pieces, Victor Hugo encountered material and human difficulties. His pieces are regularly whistled by an audience not very sensitive to romantic drama, even if they also receive vigorous applause from his admirers35.

On September 4, 1843, his daughter Léopoldine died tragically in Villequier, in the Seine, drowned with her husband Charles Vacquerie in the sinking of their boat. Hugo was then in the Pyrenees, with his mistress Juliette Drouet, and he learned of this tragedy through the newspapers in Rochefort. The writer was terribly affected by this death, which inspired several poems in Contemplations — notably, “Tomorrow, from dawn…”. From this date and until his exile, Victor Hugo no longer produced anything, neither theater, nor novel, nor poem. Some see in the death of Leopoldine and the failure of the Burgraves a reason for his disaffection for literary creation36. Others see it rather as an attraction to politics, which offers him another platform37. From 1848 to December 1851, Victor Hugo lived at the old no. 37, or at the new no. 43 rue de La Tour-d'Auvergne38
Political action
Victor Hugo
Drawing.
Victor Hugo, deputy of the National Assembly, 1849.
Functions
Senator of the Seine
January 30, 1876 – May 22, 1885
(9 years, 3 months and 22 days)
Election January 30, 1876
Re-election January 8, 1882
Far left political group
Deputy for the Seine
February 8 – Mars 1, 1871
(21 days)
Election February 8, 1871
Far left political group
June 4, 1848 – December 2, 1851
(3 years, 5 months and 28 days)
Election June 4, 1848
Re-election May 13, 1849
Right political group
Peer of France
1845 – 1848
Biography
edit See the template documentation

Raised by his mother, Sophie Trébuchet, in the spirit of royalism, Victor Hugo gradually allowed himself to be convinced of the interest of the republic (“I grew up”, he wrote in the poem “Written in 1846”39 in response to a reproach from a friend of his mother).

Victor Hugo thus became confidant of Louis-Philippe in 1844, then peer of France in 1845. His first speech in 1846 was to defend the fate of Poland torn between several countries40, then in 1847, he defended the right of the return of the banished, including that of Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte41.

He demanded a reduction in children's working hours, from 16 hours to 10 hours, but his proposal was opposed by Baron Louis Jacques Thénard, on whom he took revenge by naming the Thénardiers, his most detestable characters in Les Misérables.

On February 25, 1848, he was appointed mayor of the 8th arrondissement of Paris. After an initial failure, he was elected deputy of the Second Republic on June 4 and sat among the conservatives. On June 20, he delivered his first speech to the Assembly. During the workers' riots of June 1848, he became, like sixty others, commissioner charged by the Constituent Assembly with restoring order. He commands troops facing the barricades, in the Parisian district of which he happens to be the mayor42. He would later disapprove of the bloody repression in which he participated43. He founded the newspaper L'Événement44 in August 1848. He was disappointed by the authorities resulting from the February Revolution and the repressive laws, which the constituent assembly voted against the press on August 9 and 11, disgusted him and made him say: "The men who have held the country since February have 'first mistook anarchy for freedom; now they mistake freedom for anarchy”45. He supported the candidacy of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, elected President of the Republic in December 1848. After the dissolution of the National Assembly, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly on May 13, 1849 and delivered his Speech on Poverty on July 9, 1849.46. He broke with Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, when the latter supported the pope's return to Rome47, and he gradually fought against his former political friends, whose reactionary policies he condemned.
Exile
Main article: Exile of Victor Hugo.

During the coup d'état of December 2, 1851 by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Victor Hugo unsuccessfully attempted to organize resistance48. Having become an opponent of the government, he left for Brussels on December 11, the start of an exile which would last nineteen years49. A month later, the decree of proscription of January 9, 1852 ordered the expulsion from French territory, for reasons of general security, of sixty-six former representatives in the Legislative Assembly, including Victor Hugo50. Initially forced, the exile became voluntary in 1859, Victor Hugo refusing to return to France despite the amnesty from which he benefited.
Brussels
The Maison du Pigeon, on the Grand-Place in Brussels, where Victor Hugo resided from February to July 1852.

Victor Hugo arrived in Brussels on December 12, 1851, and stayed there for eight months. He stayed successively at the Hôtel de la Porte Verte, then in a room at the Maison du Moulin à vent, on the Grand-Place in Brussels, and finally in an apartment at the Maison du Pigeon, also on the Grand-Place, where he remains until the end of his stay48,51. Leaving alone for Brussels, he was joined there the day after his arrival by Juliette Drouet, who brought with her the manuscript trunk, precious material for the writer48,51. She moved into separate accommodation where she copied her manuscripts48,52. Victor Hugo began writing an account of the events of December 2, 1851, which would only be completed and published after his return from exile, under the title Histoire d'un crime53. For the moment, he left this project aside and wrote Napoléon le Petit, a pamphlet against Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte54. Completed in July 185255 and published in Brussels the following month56, the work was distributed clandestinely in France, despite surveillance by the authorities48. The publication of this book, however, forced Victor Hugo to leave Belgian territory57. In search of a new destination, he decided in April 1852 to go into exile in Jersey51, an Anglo-Norman island located between France and England, and placed under the latter's protection. In June 1852, Adèle Foucher, who remained in Paris to take care of material matters, put the furniture from the Parisian apartment up for sale in preparation for the family's departure for Jersey48,58.
Jersey

Victor Hugo left Brussels on August 1, 1852 for Jersey. He arrived there on August 5, welcomed by his wife Adèle Foucher, their daughter Adèle Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie, who arrived before him48. On August 16, the Hugo family moved into a house called "Marine Terrace", located in the south of the island, by the sea, and resided there until the end of the exile in Jersey, which lasted three years48,51. Juliette Drouet, who arrived at the same time as Victor Hugo, stayed there in separate dwellings51. In November 1852, Victor Hugo began writing Les Châtiments, a collection of satirical poems criticizing the Second Empire and Napoleon III59. Banned in France, the collection was published in Brussels in November 185348,56. Victor Hugo also wrote several poems for Les Contemplations, a poetic collection begun before his exile, which was published in 185648.
Victor Hugo in Jersey, photographed by Charles Hugo around 1853.

Exile to Jersey gave Victor Hugo the opportunity to explore new artistic paths. In November 1852, his son Charles set up a photography workshop at “Marine Terrace”. Charles Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie took more than three hundred photographs during the exile in Jersey, testimony to the life of the proscribed60,61. If he does not produce them himself, Victor Hugo often participates in their staging61,62,63, and plans to use them to illustrate his books64 and even to publish a collection48, projects which will not be able to be concretize60. He used photographs or was inspired by them to execute his drawings61, the production of which was very diverse during this period, with the experimentation of new graphic techniques, such as stencils65. In September 1853, Delphine de Girardin introduced members of the Hugo family to the practice of "talking tables", which allowed them to "communicate" with the spirits of deceased people. Victor Hugo took part in these sessions, which lasted until the end of his exile in Jersey48,51,66. The exchanges resulting from these sessions, transcribed in The Book of Tables, influence his literary and graphic work66,67.

Victor Hugo continued his fight against the death penalty by opposing the execution of John Tapner, sentenced to death in Guernsey for murder, and finally executed on February 10, 1854. The next day, he wrote a letter to Lord Palmerston, English Minister of the Interior, to express his indignation48,68. Marked by this event, he created The Hanged Man, a series of drawings emblematic of his fight against capital punishment69.

In October 1855, three French outlaws were expelled from Jersey by the British authorities, after having published in their newspaper L'Homme, a text opposing the official visit of Queen Victoria to Napoleon III. On October 17, 1855, Victor Hugo published with other outlaws a declaration of support for their fellow exiles, which led the authorities to also order their expulsion from Jersey. On October 31, 1855, Victor Hugo set sail for the neighboring island of Guernsey48,51,70.
Guernsey
“Hauteville House”, home of Victor Hugo in exile in Guernsey.

Arriving on October 31, 1855 on the island of Guernsey71, Victor Hugo first stayed at the Hôtel de l'Europe, then from November 9, in a house located at 20 rue Hauteville where he stayed for a year51, and he bought ten years later with Juliette Drouet, who lived there71,72. He completed Les Contemplations, which appeared in April 1856 in Brussels and Paris57,73. Thanks to the success of this collection of poems57,74, he bought, in the same street, on May 16, 1856, “Hauteville House”51, which would be his residence for nearly fifteen years, until the end of his exile74. The family moved there on November 5, 185651. Passionate about flea markets and decoration, Victor Hugo devoted himself for three years to the layout of “Hauteville House”57, which he completely personalized, designing and creating the interior decorations75 himself, composed from furniture and objects collected from the island73. During this period, he simultaneously developed “La Fallue”, Juliette Drouet's first house in Guernsey57, located near “Hauteville House”76.
Photographic portrait of Victor Hugo taken in 1861 in Brussels, Maison de Victor Hugo.

On August 16, 1859, Napoleon III decreed a general amnesty for all those convicted. On August 18, Victor Hugo announced his refusal to return to France, declaring: “Faithful to the commitment I made to my conscience, I will share the exile of freedom until the end”77. In September 1859, he published the first series of The Legend of the Centuries78. Continuing his fight against the death penalty, he launched an appeal in December 1859 on behalf of John Brown, an anti-slavery activist, sentenced to death in the United States51,78. In 1860 and 1861, he devoted himself mainly to writing his novel Les Misérables, which was published in 1862 and which enjoyed immense success78. In 1863, he wrote William Shakespeare, published the following year79.

Victor Hugo denounces the sack of the Summer Palace (October 1860) by Franco-British troops in a letter to Captain Butler dated November 25, 186180'81'82.

From 1861, Victor Hugo resumed his annual travel habits with Juliette Drouet, the last of which dates back eighteen years83. Every year until the end of his exile in 1870, they spent several months on the continent, mainly in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Rhine valley83. These stays are moments of intense creation for Victor Hugo, as much for his novels and poems as for his drawings83. He visits monuments and collects all kinds of objects which he uses to design decorations and fill his notebooks83. In 1864, he bought with Juliette Drouet the house located at 20 rue Hauteville, where he had lived eight years previously, and where the latter now lives72. He creates the decorations of the house from furniture, panels and objects recovered in Guernsey or during his travels with Juliette76,84.

Victor Hugo's family, first gathered at "Hauteville House", gradually moved away from Guernsey85. Adèle Foucher made frequent stays in Brussels and Paris, where she looked after her husband's literary and financial interests86. In 1863, she published Victor Hugo told by a witness to his life, a book of memories87. Adèle Hugo also spent several months in Paris with her mother, then left in 1863 for Halifax, Canada, to join an English officer, whom she hoped to marry88. Charles Hugo made frequent stays in France and Belgium from 1860, then married in 1865 in Brussels, where he settled89. François-Victor Hugo in turn settled in Brussels in 1865 after the death of his fiancée90. In April 1868, Charles Hugo's first son died at the age of one89. His second son, Georges Victor-Hugo, was born in August 1868, then his daughter, Jeanne Hugo, in September 186989. Adèle Foucher died in Brussels on August 27, 1868, and was buried in Villequier next to Léopoldine86. Victor Hugo accompanies the coffin to the French border87.

Towards the end of the exile, Victor Hugo published new works: the collection Les Chansons des rue et des bois in 1865, the novel Les Travailleurs de la mer, homage to Guernsey and its inhabitants, in 1866, then the novel L 'Man who laughs, in 186987. At the same time, he continued his political fight and maintained his desire to remain in exile for as long as the Second Empire lasted. In 1869, he contributed to the opposition newspaper Le Rappel, founded by his sons Charles Hugo and François-Victor Hugo with Paul Meurice and Auguste Vacquerie87,91. Dreaming of a unified Europe56, he symbolically planted the “oak of the United States of Europe” in the garden of “Hauteville House” on July 14, 187087. As France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War approached, he left Guernsey for Brussels on August 15, 1870, with a view to a possible return to France51. On September 5, 1870, the day after the proclamation of the Republic, he returned to France where he was welcomed as a hero51,85.
Return to France
Portrait of Victor Hugo by Étienne Carjat, Maison de Victor Hugo, 1873.

Back in France, he firmly believed, according to his notes from the end of August, that his country would attribute dictatorship to him92. The Parisians gave him a triumphant welcome. He actively participated in the defense of the besieged city. At the same time, it is important for him, in the name of the country's interest, to support the Government of National Defense chaired by General Trochu. Also, when on January 17, 1871, Louis Blanc asked him again to intervene to put pressure on the general, he replied: “I see more danger in overthrowing the government than in maintaining it”93.

Elected to the National Assembly (then sitting in Bordeaux) on February 8, 1871, he resigned a month later to protest against the invalidation of Garibaldi. On Mars 13, his son Charles died suddenly of apoplexy. His funeral took place on Mars 18 in Paris, the same day of the uprising which marked the start of the Paris Commune. Victor Hugo then went to Brussels to settle his son's estate, and remained there during the insurrection. He so strongly disapproved of the repression against the Commune that he was expelled by the Belgian authorities94. It was King Leopold II who signed the royal decree which decided his expulsion on the grounds that he was guilty of having welcomed into his home the vanquished of the Commune95. He found refuge for three and a half months in Luxembourg (June 1-September 23), staying successively in Luxembourg city, in Vianden (two and a half months), in Diekirch and in Mondorf, where he followed a thermal cure. There he completed the collection L’Année terrible. He was largely defeated in the complementary election of July 2, 1871. Solicited by several Republican committees, he agreed to stand as a candidate in the complementary election of January 7, 1872, and was once again defeated, because of his position in favor of an amnesty for the Communards96.
Portrait of Victor Hugo by Léon Bonnat, Château de Versailles, 1879.

The same year, Hugo returned to Guernsey where he wrote the novel Quatrevingt-treize. In 1873, he was in Paris and devoted himself to the education of his two grandchildren, Georges and Jeanne, who inspired him to write the collection of poems The Art of Being a Grandfather. He received many political and literary figures, such as Goncourt, Lockroy, Clemenceau and Gambetta94.

On January 30, 1876, he was elected senator and campaigned for amnesty for the Communards. He opposed Mac Mahon when he dissolved the assembly94. In his opening speech to the international literary congress of 1878, he positioned himself for respect for literary property, but also for the foundation of the public domain. In June 1878, Hugo suffered from illness, perhaps cerebral congestion97. He left to rest for four months in Guernsey at his home at Hauteville House, followed by his “volunteer secretary” Richard Lesclide98. This poor state of health practically put an end to his writing activity. However, numerous collections, in fact bringing together poems dating from his years of exceptional inspiration (1850-1870), continue to appear regularly (La Pitié supreme in 1879, L'Âne, Les Quatre Vents de l'esprit in 1881 , the last series of the Legend of the Centuries in September 1883), contributing to the legend of the old man who was inexhaustible until death. During this period, many of his plays were performed again (Ruy Blas in 1872, Marion de Lorme et Marie Tudor in 1873, Le roi s'amuse in 1882)94.

Under the Third Republic, the Ferry government promulgated the law of July 30, 1881, known as "national reparation", which allocated a pension or life annuity to French citizens who were victims of the coup d'état of December 2, 1851 and the general security law. . The General Commission responsible for examining the files, chaired by the Minister of the Interior, is made up of representatives of the ministry, state councilors, and includes eight parliamentarians, all former victims: four senators ( Victor Hugo, Jean -Baptiste Massé, Elzéar Pin, Victor Schœlcher) and four deputies (Louis Greppo, Noël Madier de Montjau, Martin Nadaud and Alexandre Dethou)99.
Death and funeral
Detailed article: Funeral of Victor Hugo.

Until his death in 1885, he was one of the emblematic figures of the republic, as well as an undisputed literary referencei. On Friday May 15, 1885, he suffered from pulmonary congestion100. He died on May 22, 1885, Juliette Drouet's birthday, in his private mansion "La Princesse de Lusignan", which was located at 50 avenue Victor-Hugo, in place of the current no. 124101. Three days before his death, he wrote this